LAUSR

The problem of unconceived alternatives was introduced by Kyle Stanford in his 2006 book, Exceeding our Grasp. Its main thesis was that there is good historical evidence that scientific communities have, historically, consistently failed to conceive of plausible alternatives in fundamental domains of science. Moreover, this failure to exhaust the space of epistemic possibilities could still be a deep feature of our epistemic situation, in ways that seriously challenge realist claims about science. An energetic literature has emerged that develops and challenges Stanford’s articulation of the problem, his use of historical evidence, and the anti-realist conclusions which he draws. To capitalise on those debates, we organised a two-day workshop at the University of Durham to take stock of the debate. This collection is the fruit of that event. Stanford’s original statement of the problem of unconceived alternatives, as offered in Exceeding our Grasp, mainly relied on historical case studies to demonstrate its motivating claim that the historical record gives us good reason to think that scientific communities have consistently failed to conceive of plausible alternatives to fundamental theories they did in fact develop. Many scientific realists responded that, even if that were true, this is an historical feature of scientific communities, rather than their more sophisticated successors. If so, the problem is confined to the past, and should not disturb our confidence in present and future scientific communities. In his contribution to this Special Issue, Stanford argues the contrary: there are several entrenched features of the structure and organisation of contemporary scientific communities that actually reduces their capacity to generate revolutionary, transformative, or unorthodox theories. If that’s right, then contemporary scientific communities are actually more vulnerable to the problem of unconceived alternatives, due to the entrenched epistemic conservatism now baked into their structures. An interest in the social-epistemic dimensions of science connects to an interest in the implications of the problem of unconceived alternatives for science construed